£35 million electric vehicle investment announced by Government

The UK Government will invest £30 million in installing charge points for electric vehicles (EVs) around the country.

A £35.75m kitty has been divided up between different aspects of low-emissions vehicle ownership, of which £20m will be awarded to councils to install chargers for plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and electric taxis, while £10million will go towards installing chargers near workplaces and in residential areas with no off-street parking.

£3.75m will be put towards getting motorcycle riders onto electric motorbikes and scooters, although this is only an initial investment, suggesting that there is more money on the way for this cause.

As it stands, though, a Government grant scheme is being rolled out for electric motorbikes and scooters, as it was for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Customers can claim a discount of up to £1500 off the price of a new zero-emissions motorbike or scooter.

Given the comparative lack of infrastructure, though, it’s unusual that a larger portion of the grant was not reserved for improving this, rather than furthering the vehicles themselves, which will need somewhere to fill up.

The £5m will provide 50 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, earmarked for fourteen separate fleets around the country. This will more than double the number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road in the UK.

A £600m total investment in low-emissions vehicles will be complete by 2020, the Department for Transport (DfT) claims, while a £7.5m workplace charging scheme will launch later this year.

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There are incentives to help the take-up of electric cars and then there are investments yet the take-up seems pretty slow when you take out PHEV from the equation. Why does it seem to laymen that the conversion to pure electric is still rather slow? Any thoughts?

Actually from nothing to where it is today in around 4-5 years is pretty impressive. Pretty much every manufacture has either got one on sale or is about to release one in the next 3 years. To see what can be done if we take Norway for example 1 in 5 new cars sales are EV's, again pretty impressive growth rate.

Actually from nothing to where it is today in around 4-5 years is pretty impressive. Pretty much every manufacture has either got one on sale or is about to release one in the next 3 years. To see what can be done if we take Norway for example 1 in 5 new cars sales are EV's, again pretty impressive growth rate.

Norway's growth in electric cars is purely due to horrendous taxation on non electric cars and the subsidy of electric cars. Norway boasts about its Eco credentials whilst selling huge amounts of oil and gas to others to destroy the planet with, if you believe in man made climate change. That is.
Norway's population is so tiny, about the same as Wales, to have absolutely no influence on what happens every where else.
Did you read the recent news report about how the UK's natural gas domestic consumption will have to be changed to hydrogen to meet the UK's current commitment to reduce Co2? A fantasy I think you will agree.

Actually from nothing to where it is today in around 4-5 years is pretty impressive. Pretty much every manufacture has either got one on sale or is about to release one in the next 3 years. To see what can be done if we take Norway for example 1 in 5 new cars sales are EV's, again pretty impressive growth rate.

Norway's growth in electric cars is purely due to horrendous taxation on non electric cars and the subsidy of electric cars. Norway boasts about its Eco credentials whilst selling huge amounts of oil and gas to others to destroy the planet with, if you believe in man made climate change. That is.
Norway's population is so tiny, about the same as Wales, to have absolutely no influence on what happens every where else.
Did you read the recent news report about how the UK's natural gas domestic consumption will have to be changed to hydrogen to meet the UK's current commitment to reduce Co2? A fantasy I think you will agree.

Norway produces over 100% of their electicity needs using green methods so that is why the government gives tax advantages + think of the money they save on preventing Cancer from NOx ( checkout the WHO report for evidence) so it's a fair diesel tax. No influence, they're showing how successful EV'S can be and providing a profit for Nissan. What will it take for you to accept the EV march, would 25% of new car sales be enough??? p.s. were you a pro-hydrogen car fan??

There are incentives to help the take-up of electric cars and then there are investments yet the take-up seems pretty slow when you take out PHEV from the equation. Why does it seem to laymen that the conversion to pure electric is still rather slow? Any thoughts?

Electric cars have one big problem preventing their wholesale adoption, the battery.
The cost of electric cars is higher than a diesel and the range far lower. Refuelling points are very few especially considering the time on charge compared to the time to refuel a diesel. Just add up the number of petrol/diesel pumps in the UK with a refuelling time of a couple of minutes then consider how many electric chargers we would need when they take 30 minutes minimum to recharge. Additionally if you look at websites showing recharging points there are a multitude of non compatible charging systems, many recharging points only offer 3kw or and 7kw not the high speed 40kw plus chargers which are needed for away from home recharging.

It all really does in the end come down to economics. No government can subsidise electric cars by reduced taxation compared with diesel/petrol apart from a tiny minority of electric cars. iIt is just not feasible for the government to lose the amount of revenue from fuel duties without some other tax to replace it.

Currently the oil companies and fuel retailers fund the supply and operation of fuel pump stations for a profit. When/if someone can make a profit from building and operating electric chargers for cars throughout the country we then could get more people into electric cars.

There are incentives to help the take-up of electric cars and then there are investments yet the take-up seems pretty slow when you take out PHEV from the equation. Why does it seem to laymen that the conversion to pure electric is still rather slow? Any thoughts?

Electric cars have one big problem preventing their wholesale adoption, the battery.
The cost of electric cars is higher than a diesel and the range far lower. Refuelling points are very few especially considering the time on charge compared to the time to refuel a diesel. Just add up the number of petrol/diesel pumps in the UK with a refuelling time of a couple of minutes then consider how many electric chargers we would need when they take 30 minutes minimum to recharge. Additionally if you look at websites showing recharging points there are a multitude of non compatible charging systems, many recharging points only offer 3kw or and 7kw not the high speed 40kw plus chargers which are needed for away from home recharging.

It all really does in the end come down to economics. No government can subsidise electric cars by reduced taxation compared with diesel/petrol apart from a tiny minority of electric cars. iIt is just not feasible for the government to lose the amount of revenue from fuel duties without some other tax to replace it.

Currently the oil companies and fuel retailers fund the supply and operation of fuel pump stations for a profit. When/if someone can make a profit from building and operating electric chargers for cars throughout the country we then could get more people into electric cars.

You're wrong on some many counts I can barely bother any more posting the same evidence against your claims. I'll do it quickly, I've got more than 40 refuelling points in my house, people charge it overnight when they're asleep they don't wait standing beside the car, diesel costs 5 times per mile in fuel costs, a range of over 150 miles is enough for most people especially the ones in two car families, they're quieter and smoother, SALES ARE STILL GOING UP. Norway give tax advantages because it saves on potential cancer care caused by Diesel NOx. Camper call it day and accept that the EV car is here and if you're a Hydrogen fan you lost the argument.

There are incentives to help the take-up of electric cars and then there are investments yet the take-up seems pretty slow when you take out PHEV from the equation. Why does it seem to laymen that the conversion to pure electric is still rather slow? Any thoughts?

Electric cars have one big problem preventing their wholesale adoption, the battery.
The cost of electric cars is higher than a diesel and the range far lower. Refuelling points are very few especially considering the time on charge compared to the time to refuel a diesel. Just add up the number of petrol/diesel pumps in the UK with a refuelling time of a couple of minutes then consider how many electric chargers we would need when they take 30 minutes minimum to recharge. Additionally if you look at websites showing recharging points there are a multitude of non compatible charging systems, many recharging points only offer 3kw or and 7kw not the high speed 40kw plus chargers which are needed for away from home recharging.

It all really does in the end come down to economics. No government can subsidise electric cars by reduced taxation compared with diesel/petrol apart from a tiny minority of electric cars. iIt is just not feasible for the government to lose the amount of revenue from fuel duties without some other tax to replace it.

Currently the oil companies and fuel retailers fund the supply and operation of fuel pump stations for a profit. When/if someone can make a profit from building and operating electric chargers for cars throughout the country we then could get more people into electric cars.

You are absolutely correct. If electric cars caught on in a big way (they won't) and became even a significant minority, never mind a majority, of the vehicles on the road, the tax balance would have to be adjusted so that filling up with electricity cost the same as filling up with petrol.

Plus of course there is the insurmountable problem that whereas if one runs out of fuel on a country road miles from anywhere with a petrol engine, one can get a can from the boot, refill and be moving again in a couple of minutes, that can't happen with electric cars.

When I used to do a lot of mileage about the Highlands in the early hours of the morning I'd have two twenty litre bottles strapped in one side of the boot. If I ever needed to I could put another couple of hundred miles in my tank on any deserted road I found myself. I never saw a plug socket on any of them.

There are incentives to help the take-up of electric cars and then there are investments yet the take-up seems pretty slow when you take out PHEV from the equation. Why does it seem to laymen that the conversion to pure electric is still rather slow? Any thoughts?

I think we're basically a very conservative market. Hybrids have been on sale for 16 years, yet electrified vehicles of any sort only represent 3% of Britain's new car sales. If memory serves, we were slow to adopt diesel too.

The Conservative government is under the belief that market forces will dictate the adoption of EVs, and that little government incentive is necessary. I attended a Q&A session with my local MP (Cons.) today and he said as such.

But that's not what's been borne out by the data. I don't think we'll buy electrics en masse until kicked in the arse to do so.

Xxxx mentions Norway as an example, and it's very pertinent, because it shows what extreme government intervention can do. They're not losing money from it, in net terms - the lack of sales tax on EVs is more than compensated for by the 100% tax on ICEs - and as a result, electric sales were in the 30% range last time I looked.

I think Norway's method is too extreme, as it punishes people too poor to afford a Zoe or Outlander, but reforming the tax/incentive balance on cars would be a great way to get the ball rolling, with no impact on the national coffers.

The other thing Norway points out is that electrics aren't usually prohibitively difficult to live with, people are getting over their concerns and buying the crap out of them.

With that said, I think there's a sizeable core of customers who won't buy EVs even if they're priced on-par with ICEs, and offer equivalent range and near-equivalent 'refilling' time (all of which will happen in the next decade). I don't think they'll budge unless there's some gigantic national paradigm shift, or more likely, if government bans start happening.

There are incentives to help the take-up of electric cars and then there are investments yet the take-up seems pretty slow when you take out PHEV from the equation. Why does it seem to laymen that the conversion to pure electric is still rather slow? Any thoughts?

Because anybody with the back of an envelope and limited maths skills can see they currently (sic) don't make economic sense - the cost of fuel over 3 to 4 years is less than the additional premium for buying an EV (even allowing for the London factor, where saving on congestion charge will be cancelled out by parkinhg charges in the majority of cases)